Atlanta: Pole winner's interview

JEFF GORDON,
NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS: QUALIFIED 1ST
NOTE: This marked Gordon's 64th career pole in the NASCAR Sprint Cup
Series and his second Coors Light pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
ON HIS RUN: "This is my first Coors Light pole is how...

JEFF GORDON,
NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS: QUALIFIED 1ST

NOTE: This marked Gordon's 64th career pole in the NASCAR Sprint Cup
Series and his second Coors Light pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

ON HIS RUN: "This is my first Coors Light pole is how I'm looking
at it (laughs). You know what? This is a tough place to sit on the pole.
I'm extremely excited about this. This is a very fast race track and
it's tough to get around here quick. Today we got out there and
practiced and I thought something was wrong with the car. It was that out
of control. And we were pretty far down on the time sheet. And so to work
with (crew chief) Steve Letarte and the team the way we did, we just kept
making progress throughout practice and to go out there and put down that
kind of lap feels great. I'm impressed with this team. I feel like we
really owe the No. 5 (Casey Mears) and the No. 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.)
teams a lot of credit because they were here back in late last year (for
the test). They got the data and information and it really allowed us,
because we didn't test, to be able to come here and be able to work
through a lot of the challenges that this car and this tire have at this
track. I'm pretty excited about the fact that we're on the pole
today."

YOU BOUNCED BACK PRETTY GOOD FROM LAST SUNDAY'S CRASH AT LAS VEGAS.
TALK ABOUT PUTTING THAT BEHIND YOU AND MOVING FORWARD

"That pretty much went away right away because we were at Phoenix
testing for two days. Sometimes testing can be as grueling as a race
weekend. I was just very thankful of the fact that I was able to (one)
walk away from that; and (two) go to Phoenix and test for two days. I was
sore. But none of the soreness affected me in the race car. Weird stuff,
like my stomach and my elbow was banged up and some things like that, but
on the race track I was able to put that out of the way. To be able to
come here and get the weekend started off right like this definitely puts
a smile on our faces and hopefully can build that momentum back that was
lost from last week. So we're looking forward to that. It's time
for us to get ourselves where we need to be up in the points. We've
been running so good and we just need to follow that up and make sure
those runs turn into good finishes, which at the end of the day will turn
into points."

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD OF A HIT IT WAS? TALK ABOUT THE NEW TIRES AND IF
THAT MIGHT CHANGE THE WAY YOU APPROACH THE TRACK

"They do things a little bit different now in the type of information
they put out or go over with you. They used to just have a G-load, or a
maximum G-load. Now they look at it over time because the more spread out
it is (the better). You could take a higher load if it's spread out.
I think they said it was a 50, which is still really, really high. But
they liked the fact that it was spread out and I liked the fact that it
was spread out. Obviously the angle that I hit the wall was a bad angle,
but the fact that the car spun and kept moving was dissipating the
energy, which was good. It was the hardest I've ever hit in that
direction. And I go through it and think about what happened during the
wreck and between the seat belt and the Hans; a lot of wrecks it's
about the head support, the padding, the seat and how it's bolted in
the car and the crush zones around the car. But in this situation, it was
the way you hit and it's all in the seat belts and the Hans device.
They did their job and I'm very thankful for that.

"The tires here? I didn't test here. According to the guys that
did test, they said it's quite a bit different than the tire they
tested because those tires were wearing too much. So Goodyear came back
with a different package here. It's not the best. I think that
it's going to be a tire that probably stays on the cars. We're
not going to have the wear issues that we had, but we're going to be
equally as challenged just trying to keep the car going in a straight
line. I went out there today and I felt like I had 25 or 30 laps on the
tires on brand new sticker tires. It cooled down this evening and had
pretty good grip, but still you saw all the cars were out of control. So
I just don't think right now we're matched great for qualifying
this car, this tire, at this track. I'm hoping tomorrow when we get
into race runs that this tire will really pay off in that comfort and
that drivability will start coming back to us a little bit."

DOES IT SPEAK TO THE STANDARD THAT YOU SET LAST YEAR THAT PEOPLE ARE
ALREADY ASKING WHAT'S WRONG WITH HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS? WHAT DID YOU
SAY WHEN YOU GOT OUT OF THE CAR, THIS THING IS EVIL?

"Today? Yeah, it is (laughs). It's just a handful; I mean a real
handful. I've been really impressed with this car at Daytona and
California, and Vegas. It's been impressive to me of how good and
comfortable and how good our teams have been. But I've got to tell
you that there's not a single comment you're going to get like
that this weekend. It's just that this car and this tire; this is a
tough race track, and it's not matching up too well right now. We are
all going to have our hands full. I think all of us are really struggling
with that.

"Oh, whatever. We don't pay attention to that (what's wrong
with Hendrick Motorsports?). We know what we are capable of doing and
we're three races in. I think it's kind of silly to even think
about that. When there is a lot of hype and expectations, those things
happen. And other than the Roush cars outrunning us, I feel like
we've been the best car. The 99 and the 17 last week and the 16;
those guys have been really strong. Other than them, I feel like
we've been the best. And so I'm not really concerned with that. I
think if we keep running the way we're running and if we can get to
the finish line, we're going to get our share of wins."

DO YOU SEE ANY HAZARDS ON THIS TRACK THAT CONCERN YOU LIKE THE HOLE YOU
HIT AT LAS VEGAS?

"Any place that there is not a soft wall concerns me. I think one
thing we've learned is that if there are race cars going close to 200
mph on a race track, anything is possible. So, I'll be honest. I
haven't looked in depth, but I know there are some areas where there
aren't a soft wall here, but I can't say that there are as many
things that stand out to me as like that particular wall at Las Vegas.
And I will say this that between Bruton (Smith) and Chris Powell there at
Las Vegas Motor Speedway, I've been really impressed with the way
they've handled it. They called right away checking on me and telling
me what their plans were and everything they want to do going forward and
I'm impressed with that. It's unfortunate that what happened,
happened. It's unfortunate we weren't ahead of what happened and
could anticipate that. You just can't always do that. But it's
how you handle it from this day forward at not just his tracks, but at
all the tracks. So I hope that everybody takes notice of that and that we
can make progress from this point on."

AS A NEW FATHER, DOES A HARD HIT LIKE THAT PUT THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE?

"She (Ingrid) was pretty upset about that. I think her reaction,
which then I reacted to as well. I'm a race car driver until I walk
into the bus after the race and see Ingrid and (daughter) Ella and you
switch over to father and you see the look on her face and you get the
big hug and squeeze and the reaction. Then it sinks in that it does
affect you and it affects them. Ingrid has always known that I'm
committed to what I'm doing here. As a race car driver all I can do
it push as hard as I can to try to win races and be competitive until the
day I decide not to do it or I can't do it. That's always going
to be my mindset. And while its certainly brought family much closer to
me and the thought of it and all that more so than ever, it also made me
more thankful of how safe my race cars are and the fact that I was able
to walk away from that in one of the nastiest wrecks I've ever had.
So yeah, it definitely weighs on your mind. But at the same time, I guess
I'm a positive thinker. I've always tried to think of the
positives. It's not going to change how I'm going to race.
Tonight showed that. I think its just part of my nature. I get in the
race car and I put the helmet on and I flip the switch and all other
things pretty much go out of my mind (laughs)."

GREG BIFFLE SAID TODAY THAT YOUR WRECK SHOULD BE IN ITS OWN CONTEXT AS
MUCH OF A WAKE UP CALL AS DALE EARNHARDT'S WAS. AFTER
EARNHARDT'S WRECK AND WE LOST HIM, A LOT OF SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS WERE
MADE, WHICH ENABLED YOU TO WALK AWAY. IS IT TIME FOR A SECOND WAVE OF THE
SAFETY REVOLUTION?

"That's kind of what I was saying. I think every track should
have soft walls or safer barriers on all outside and inside walls.
That's just my opinion. If there is any possible way for you to get
to the wall, then we should be looking at that. That was a nasty wreck
and it's gotten a lot of attention. I only hope that something
positive can come out of that. I already know from Bruton's side that
it's going to come. I've got that word and I believe him. I just
hope that it also transfers over to all the tracks out there. We saw it
at Kentucky a few years back. That was nasty. And unfortunately more than
one incident happened there. But I believe they fixed it now. And so this
is an incident that happened at Las Vegas and sometimes they are
isolated. It's important for the safety vehicles to get out on the
track. We've got to have those openings. I saw on ESPN the other day
Rusty describing that they have it at Iowa and I think if they can
incorporate that into their facility at every track, it's the best
way to go about it. Not everybody has the ability to go about it that
way. But I certainly hope that this is a light bulb going of that we need
to look at this. I hope that Monday morning, every race track was
thinking about what do we have that could be like that, that we need to
work on and fix. And we're going to find out. We're going to see
what tracks react and which ones don't. And I'm going to come
down hard on the ones that don't, I'll tell you that."

GREG BIFFLE SAID IT'S NOT JUST THE TRACK AND THE SANCTIONING BODY,
BUT ITS ALSO THE DRIVER. WOULD YOU HAVE GONE TO THEM IN ADVANCE AND SAID
HEY I SEE THIS AND IT'S NOT RIGHT?

"I'll just tell you my frame of mind with the Vegas incident.
Clint Bowyer wrecked on Saturday and as he hit the outside wall and slid
and he just barely got the same part of the wall that I hit. But he was
going pretty slow and just touched it. At that time, I said why is that
wall like that? It shouldn't be like that. And while I wouldn't
have just run out to NASCAR and said hey, what are you going to do about
that? Because there is nothing you could do about it for that weekend. I
was probably going to say something to them this weekend and just bring
it up. Now I don't know where that would have gone, but that would
have been my usual normal way of doing things. And it may have been two
weeks, I don't know. But I would have said something eventually. Now
that this has happened, obviously it's gotten it out there a little
more mainstream. To me, we don't have the ability to walk and drive
slowly around every race track. We do put a lot of faith in the safety
from the race tracks, from the NASCAR side of it of them watching and
looking for those things. We do heavily look into what we do inside our
race cars and with our race cars and I feel like it's a team effort.
I really do. Maybe the ball got dropped there at Las Vegas. Whatever.
There is no reason looking back on it; let's look forward. And
let's just hope that the ball doesn't get dropped anywhere else.
It takes time to rectify those things. So we're going to give it a
certain period of time and see what happens. I do wish I could go around
every race track and go around it and maybe I should. But I haven't
in the past."

ON THE CAR BEING EVIL AND THE HANDLING OF THE CAR, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO
SEE ON SUNDAY?

"I can't answer that until I get out there tomorrow and make
longer runs. But I can tell you that if it's that much of a handful
on brand new tires, it's going to be a real handful on Sunday. Or, it
might be that the pace drops down enough that maybe the control and
comfort maybe comes back to us. I don't know until I get out
there."

DO YOU THINK BECAUSE YOU WERE IN THIS ACCIDENT AS OPPOSED TO ANOTHER
DRIVER, PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT THIS MORE SERIOUSLY? WHEN YOU SAY
SOMETHING, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO LISTEN BUT THEY MIGHT NOT LISTEN TO A
DRIVER WHO IS NOT JEFF GORDON

"Well you never hope that's the situation. You hope a bad
accident is a bad accident and that it gets looked at seriously no matter
who is driving the car or what happens. But I will say that if it takes
me going through that and stepping up and saying something to get it
fixed, then I'm just going to play my part. I can't control how
anybody else handles it. But if a bigger name driver gets more attention
through something like this, then let's take advantage of it. I
don't look at it that way. I don't focus on it that way. I think
we all wonder and question those things across the board all the time,
but who knows? I put faith in our sanctioning body and our race tracks
that they do the best they possibly can. Sometimes things get overlooked.
It happens for us too. When it comes to speed and safety and different
things as we're dealing with our race car, sometimes we overlook
things. So I've internally just been looking inside my race car of
things that I can do; looking at every bruise that I have and every bit
of pain that I have, I go okay, how can I work on this? How can I work on
that? I just hope that's the same thing happening with the race
tracks. And it goes all the way to Nebraska and those folks too, which
have been great in creating the Safer barrier. So I don't know the
answer to your question but we'll see what happens."

YOU'VE GOT SOME GUYS DOWN THERE THAT OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS ARE
REALLY GOING TO BE BATTLING TO GET IN THE TOP 35. SOME OF THEM ARE FORMER
INDY 500 WINNERS. TALK ABOUT ATLANTA AND BRISTOL AND THE DIFFICULTY OF
STAYING ALIVE IN THE TOP 35. WHAT ABOUT THAT STRUGGLE?

"Bruce, I'm just trying to keep myself inside the top 35 right
now, man (laughs). Yeah, you know there are some interesting little
things going around the garage area right now about who is in the top 35
and who is trying to protect and help other people stay in the top 35.
You know what? This business has turned into just that. It's big
business. And these sponsors pay a lot of money and you can't afford
to lose them. And we've seen that's the thing that keeps the team
afloat. And being in the top 35 and being in the race every week and not
having to qualify in, what risk are you willing to take to do that? And
that's what we're going to find out. Some guys are going to play
it cool and smart and hope that that gets them in. Other guys are going
to take big risks and hope that gets them in. So it's an interesting
story to watch, just like it's interesting to watch qualifying when
those guys are all qualifying at the back."